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Cities Transforming How Government Works

Local Leading Examples

Bloomberg Philanthropies What Works Cities has two main goals: to recognize city halls using data to improve their communities and to help cities better understand and strengthen their data practices.

At the core of these goals is the What Works Cities Standard of Excellence, which outlines what it means to be a data-driven local government.

With 43 criteria under eight foundational practices, the Standard is comprehensive — and that’s on purpose. We believe that a full picture of how your City Hall uses data today is the first step to becoming a City Hall that prioritizes data.

Each of the eight foundational practices represents a critical area of data-driven governance. These leading examples highlight stories of cities successfully implementing data practices aligned to each of the eight foundational practices:

Community Impact: Montevideo

Practices related to the local government’s role as a leader within the broader ecosystem of data-driven decision-making and in training and collaborating with stakeholders to build use of city data and analytics services to deepen community impact.

Montevideo, Uruguay (Gold 2024)

A city’s data belongs to its people. So for city leaders, the journey of learning to use data more ambitiously should not be solely an internal exercise. They must invite residents and partners into the conversation and empower them to use data to help solve problems and hold government accountable.

Montevideo does this in several ways. City leaders organize neighborhood workshops to introduce residents to the wealth of city data available on Montevideo’s open data portal, and learn how to use it to be more informed advocates on the issues they care about.  They’ve also launched an API portal where software developers can access streams of real-time city data to build applications, and held a competition where 92 civic hackers came together and proposed 20 ideas. One winning idea proposed using city transit data to improve access for people with disabilities.

At the same time, city leaders are building their own data applications for residents to use. That was particularly valuable during a recent drought, when sodium levels in drinking water became unsafe for pregnant women and others with certain health conditions. City leaders shared daily water test results so that residents could make informed decisions about whether to drink tap water or not. Other applications share information on which city beaches are safe for swimming, which streets need sidewalk repairs, and which complaints from residents are coming into city hotlines.

Montevideo city leaders are eager to share what they’re learning about city data and innovation with residents, private-sector partners, and peers in other cities. For example, the city recently hosted an Innovation Expo at City Hall. The free event celebrated the ways data and technology are making cities across Uruguay safer, more sustainable, and inclusive.

Montevideo City Government Resources:

What Works Cities Criteria:

Data Management: Tempe

The practices and policies that support comprehensive management of shared and internal data so local governments can routinely and strategically leverage data for decision making and delivery of data and analytics services.

Tempe, Arizona (Platinum 2023)

Tempe has a very comprehensive data management practice, one that emphasizes the values of transparency. The city has developed policies, practices, and standards related to how data are made public, stored, shared, secured, and improved, all within the city’s Data Policy and Governance guide. These are very much living documents: a cross-departmental Data Governance Committee meets regularly to review and update these practices, policies, and standards as circumstances or technology change. For example, the committee recently added a policy related to the ethical use of artificial intelligence.

Tempe also centers community input in its data management practices. The city routinely collects qualitative feedback from residents, following community engagement approaches outlined in its Engagement Framework and Involving the Public Manual. In addition, Tempe has a standard in place around the collection and use of disaggregated data. The standard lays out the why, when, and how of managing data broken down by demographic or geographic characteristics. For example, when city leaders conduct public surveys or questionnaires, they use a consistent set of questions and answers, ensuring that data they collect on age, race, ethnicity, gender, income, and other characteristics comes out “apples to apples.” Having quality disaggregated data enables city leaders to identify, measure, and address disparities in services and outcomes.

Demand is growing in and out of Tempe’s City Hall for data packaged in user-friendly ways, such as the data shared through the dashboard Tempe’s Fire and Emergency Medical Services teams use to analyze their performance. To ensure that data sharing efforts like these meet the needs of residents, Tempe has published a “Disaggregated Demographic and Geographic Data Standard” — one of the first among U.S. cities. The standard makes clear that city leaders should prioritize building data sharing efforts likely to have the biggest impact, and be developed based on feedback from the people who use it.

Tempe City Government Resources:

What Works Cities Criteria:

Data-Driven Budget and Finance: San Jose

A strategic process used to incorporate data and evidence and align strategic priorities and metrics with financial decisions and to shift funding and resources from ineffective programs and services, to those that are evidence-based and resident-focused.

San José, California (Gold 2023)

All too often, local budgets run on autopilot, with allocations for longstanding programs defaulting to whatever was spent the previous year, with small adjustments up or down.

That’s not how it works in San José. The city of nearly 1 million anchoring Silicon Valley demonstrates a systematic approach to budgeting in a strategic and data-driven way. San José’s budget is aligned around high-level outcomes city leaders want to see, along with performance indicators tracking progress toward specific goals.

In recent years, San José has strengthened its budget process to ensure city resources are used effectively and fairly to meet community needs. City departments are now required to develop action plans detailing specific steps they’re taking to address disparities in services and outcomes, as well as performance measures to track progress. Those plans are supported by a structured budgeting process that helps department leaders assess how proposed investments will impact residents and citywide goals.

In response to budget direction, departments provide information on how their budgets embed inclusion through a welcoming framework. Additionally, City departments review whether any proposed additions or reductions to their services impact the most vulnerable and underserved communities. As part of the budget development process, departments receive guidance as an accompaniment to assist departments in evaluating how requests for core services or programs may affect different communities within the city. Departments are expected to use data disaggregated by factors such as race, ethnicity, gender and age to track how they are using budget dollars to close gaps in services and outcomes. It’s one way that San Jose ensures that its city budget is an accurate expression of local priorities and values.

San José City Government Resources:

What Works Cities Criteria:

Evaluations: Washington, D.C.

Systematic assessments using standard research methods to help local governments gain insights into the design, implementation, or effects of a policy, program, or practice, and make continual improvements.

Washington, D.C. (Gold 2023)

In the nation’s capital, city leaders have something few other cities can boast: an office dedicated to conducting rigorous studies of policies and programs. Founded in 2017, The Lab @ DC now has more than a dozen staff, including researchers and data scientists, whose job is to determine whether city policies and programs work. That represents an extraordinary commitment to evaluation, from the mayor’s office right down through the agencies.

The Lab regularly leads randomized control trials, the most rigorous of scientific tools available to determine whether new policies, programs, messaging, or other changes are working. For example, when D.C. began diverting non-emergency 911 medical calls to nurses, The Lab studied the change and found that it reduced unnecessary ambulance trips and got callers connected with the right care for their needs. When randomized control trials aren’t possible, The Lab staff analyze administrative data to research whether programs are working. Lab researchers work closely with leaders at agencies to design these studies and interpret the results, which decision makers use to decide on strategies and funding levels.

When starting new programs, D.C. leaders regularly look elsewhere for proven models to emulate. As part of its pandemic recovery strategy, for example, city schools invested in a high-impact tutoring model that’s been shown to be dramatically more effective than standard tutoring. Likewise, when city leaders set out to bolster mental health services for residents in crisis, they joined a cohort of cities working with the Harvard Kennedy School Government Performance Lab to learn from each other as they implemented their programs.

Washington, D.C. City Government Resources:

What Works Cities Criteria:

Leadership and Capacity: Syracuse

A strong foundation for the effective use of data and evidence starts with the chief executive and leadership routinely accessing data for decision-making and explicitly demonstrating that governing with data and evidence is an organizational expectation.

Syracuse, New York (Gold 2023)

In Syracuse, the drive for data-driven government starts from the top. Mayoral data dashboards keep staff focused on delivering high-performance parks, sanitation, road safety and other services. Department leaders to come to the table with data to help inform the mayor’s key decisions. And the administration uses data to engage residents.

But data leadership in Syracuse doesn’t just come from the Mayor’s office; it flows from key decision makers located throughout City Hall. That’s important, because mayors come and go. Embedding data capabilities deep within the organization ensures that the work lives on for the long haul.

The locus of that expertise in Syracuse is the city’s Office of Analytics, Performance, and Innovation, or API. That office has developed into a good-government powerhouse, with “responsible use of data for public impact” as a core pillar of its work. API’s 15-person staff, including a data analyst, engineer and program manager, represents an unusually large investment in data and innovation for a city of less than 150,000 people.

API’s staff includes a full-time performance management specialist. That person is responsible for crafting the city’s overall performance management strategy and working with leadership and department staff to set performance targets and measure progress toward meeting them. For heavy-duty evaluations that require scientific expertise, API secures partnerships with outside organizations such as Syracuse University’s Maxwell X-Lab. For example, the City and Maxwell X-Lab teamed up on an experiment to test whether sending residents with unpaid property tax bills a handwritten notice would boost payments. (It did.)

In addition, Syracuse has stepped up its capabilities in results-driven contracting. Through a partnership with the Harvard Kennedy School Government Performance Lab, Syracuse has a fellow who works with a cross-departmental contracting team. Their goal is not just to make procurement more efficient but also more strategic and aligned to the results city leaders aim to achieve.

Syracuse City Government Resources:

What Works Cities Criteria:

Open Data: Cambridge

The practice of proactively making city data publicly available – in whole or in part – and legally open for use. The creation of sustainable open data systems can promote informed decision-making, transparency, and robust resident engagement.

Cambridge, Massachusetts (Platinum 2025)

Cities have come a long way with open data in recent years – it’s very common now for local governments to make at least some of their data public by publishing it online. Cambridge city leaders push the limits of this practice by going extra lengths to make that data easy to find and even delightful to use.

The approach is rooted in the Cambridge Open Data Ordinance. That law not only codifies the city’s commitment to data transparency, but also the rationale for doing so. “Making government data open in easy to find and usable formats,” the law says, “will create effective and meaningful opportunities for the City and members of the public to work collaboratively to generate new ideas to solve complex challenges.”

The ordinance requires a board composed of both residents and city employees to weigh privacy, security, or other concerns as new datasets are prepared to publish. The board meets quarterly at City Hall, and often brings in guest speakers from Cambridge’s famous universities and tech sector to keep city leaders up to speed on cutting-edge practice. (The meeting records are public, of course.)

Cambridge publishes and regularly updates more than 200 datasets on the city’s open data portal; more datasets are added every year, with a priority placed on data that has the highest value to city leaders and the public. The website is well organized and easy to navigate. If users don’t want to drill down into the full catalog of datasets, they can easily skim across data visualizations that tell stories about the city budget, development projects, and community engagement using city data.

Disaggregated data are highlighted where available. For example, a workforce dashboard breaks down the demographics of all city employees by race and gender and charts how the city is doing at tackling employment disparities. City leaders also have some fun with data on the portal: A “Dogs of Cambridge” data story uses animal licensing records to reveal the city’s most popular dog names (Charlie and Luna) and breeds (mixed breeds and labrador retrievers).

City leaders in Cambridge emphasize engaging the public around how they can use open data to understand challenges in the community and be part of the solution. Their Open Data User Guide offers a step-by-step guide for exploring and analyzing datasets. The city regularly hosts public workshops on open data, and publishes an open data newsletter to keep residents informed of new developments. And through a Civic Innovation Challenge, residents have a standing invitation to use their data skills to help city leaders solve real problems like reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Cambridge City Government Resources:

What Works Cities Criteria:

Performance and Analytics: Phoenix

The practice of studying how to perform better and inserting those insights into the operational decision-making process, solving problems through performance management systems and the use of analyses, and creating a culture of accountability.

Phoenix, Arizona (Platinum 2023)

While many cities have stepped up their game with performance management in recent years, Phoenix stands apart for its thorough and transparent approach. The city manager’s office sets the tone. All 31 departments are expected to identify metrics to track their performance and continually refresh the data to yield timely views on how well they’re delivering. Departments aren’t on their own; data experts in the city’s Office of Innovation act as internal consultants to support them with implementation.

The most visible culmination of this work is the City Manager’s Performance Dashboard. This online resource offers a detailed yet clear way for residents to see how their local government is doing across more than 170 different measures. Users can drill down into six service areas, such as public safety, transportation & infrastructure, or neighborhoods & livability. Within each, they can see whether departments are hitting or missing their goals, look at how performance has been trending in recent years, and learn exactly what these datapoints mean. It’s rare for performance dashboards like this to be so comprehensive and well designed for public consumption — and it’s the result of an iterative process that continuously improves the dashboard over time based on feedback. The point of all this transparency: to enable residents to hold their leaders accountable for results.

City leaders use this performance data, too. It’s critical in deciding where improvements are necessary and anticipating impacts of budget changes. Performance management is also key to strategic planning around big priorities. For example, when Phoenix adopted a “Vision Zero” action plan to reduce traffic deaths, the plan included a series of 31 performance measures. Those benchmarks apply to a wide range of activities, from reducing red-light running to improving street lighting to creating safer routes to school. It’s meant to keep the many departments who share responsibility for road safety aligned around meeting a goal of zero traffic fatalities by 2050.

As artificial intelligence and other new tools creep into the data landscape, Phoenix is taking steps to document how these tools are being used and the risks involved. For example, the city partnered with researchers at Arizona State University to pilot smart traffic cameras that not only see congestion but collect data on the number of vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists, and near misses.

Phoenix City Government Resources:

What Works Cities Criteria:

Results-Driven Contracting: San Antonio

A set of strategies to structure, evaluate, and actively manage contracts strategically, using data to help local governments leverage procurement as a tool to make progress on their highest priority goals.

San Antonio, Texas (Gold 2023)

Collectively, cities around the world spend more than $6 trillion a year on goods and services. Yet city leaders often are not very strategic or data-driven about that spend. Procurement is often viewed mostly as a boring back-end process, rather than a tool to help the city achieve big goals.

San Antonio seeks to demonstrate otherwise. A good example is how the city contracts for $29 million in human services programs, including everything from afterschool reading workshops to domestic violence prevention to meals for seniors. More than forty various nonprofits apply through the procurement process to provide services targeting community needs and leveraging private funding to improve community indicators of well-being.

To stay strategic, San Antonio uses a data-driven “consolidated funding” process. A request for proposal is put out every two years, anchored by four “long-term results” city leaders are aiming to achieve. Those outcomes are:

Each of these long-term outcomes are based on community indicators which track the social and economic well-being of the community. The City establishes goals to move these community indicators in a positive direction, such as reducing the number of families experiencing domestic violence by 10 percent or reducing the number of homeless families by 25 percent. The City works with delegate agencies to establish programmatic performance measures utilizing the Results-Based Accountability Framework, which contribute to achieving these goals. Delegate agencies are required to report performance data on a periodic basis with disaggregated client data and demographics as part of telling their “story” of their work. The Department of Human Services has utilized this format of data-driven contracting for more than five years in the oversight and management of social service contracts along with publishing performance results quarterly on the City’s website.

This transparency is something San Antonio embeds across its entire procurement process to make sure potential bidders — including local and small businesses — know about opportunities. On its website, the city publishes anticipated solicitations a couple of months before they go live; contract opportunities that are currently open for bidding; contract opportunities that have recently closed; and solicitations that are currently under review with intent to award a contract. There’s also an archive of awarded contracts worth more than $50,000.

What’s more, San Antonio invests in the capacity of vendors, including local and small businesses, to do business with the city. One program provides mentorship for owners of small local businesses.

San Antonio City Government Resources:

What Works Cities Criteria:

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